Mobile computing devices are increasingly being adopted by mainstream users. The combination of easy portability, increasing network availability, and large local storage capabilities will result in mobile devices becoming the primary computing device for many users. Today, such wireless devices are being used for a variety of different types of communication. For example, current and anticipated mobile phone technologies have transformed wireless devices into powerful tools capable of capturing and communicating voice, data, images, video, and other multimedia content. Mobile phones now often include data messaging capabilities such as text messaging such as short message service (SMS), multimedia messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), etc.
However, these messaging capabilities often require corresponding messaging accounts. For example, a mobile phone user who wants to send and/or receive e-mails via his/her mobile phone must establish some e-mail account in order to engage in e-mail communication. For those individuals who may already have an e-mail account(s) established, they must try to recall account settings and re-enter those settings in the mobile device. Because years may pass from when a user first establishes the account and when they may want to use that account on a different device, significant research must be performed to find the account setup details, e.g., server host names and associated protocols and settings.
Another issue seen when configuring an account on a new mobile device is that mobile user interface mechanisms may be more difficult to manipulate. For example, many mobile phones do not have a standard keyboard (e.g., QWERTY keyboard), but rather have a numeric keypad with alpha character capabilities. It can be difficult and time-consuming to enter the information required to configure an account via such a limited UI device.